Dissolving Darkness Into the Deprivation Tank

Stepping into the Pod

Naked and exposed, I step into the pod. My heart is clouded with painful feelings from violence, famine and disease. My mind is cluttered with a to-do list and pending deadlines that are beyond human capabilities. The water is silky with a 31% solution of magnesium sulfate. I close the lid of the deprivation tank and remove myself from the world and settle into the ten inches of water. My body becomes buoyant, breasts floating and bobbing, my mind melting into the softness.

The Birth of the Deprivation Tank

John C. Lilly, psychotherapist and medical doctor, experimented with a Deprivation Tank in the 1960’s. As a result, these tanks are now used on the physical level for relief of pain, depression, and increased flow of lymphatic fluid. On a spiritual level, they are used to access deeper levels of consciousness; to find out where your brain travels when there is no external stimuli.

Cocoon of Darkness

I am here today to clear my energy field, to push the reset button so I can cope with the chaos and violence of the outside world. Turning off lights and music, I collapse in to a cocoon of silent darkness. Floating, I feel nothing, not even the water which is at body temperature. I am suspended in time and space. Will I reach Santori Samadhi, the meditation state of enlightenment? Will I become one with my object of meditation which is the state of No-thing-ness?

I am embraced by the darkness like a cloak of security and safety. It feels other worldly. I begin to let go. I focus on my breath. The sound reminds me of putting on my snorkel mask. Each inhale and exhale vibrates and echoes in the tank. My breath slows to about six inhales per minute with long gaps of nothing in between.

And now, even letting go of the feeling of letting go, I want to explore my deepest self; the me that is beyond the Universe. I enter Theta brain waves, the state of deep trance similar to hypnosis.

A Vision of the Future

Going deeper into the stillness, the darkness, I begin to have a vision of the future or another dimension and a simultaneous lifetime. I recognize that I am in an anti-gravity Jell-O pod. The pod has been placed in a spaceship to be transported to another planet. There are others with me. We have all been diagnosed with PTSD and are being deported until we can cope with the vulgarities of the world. Then we will be re-established into life on this planet.

For now, I am suspended in the bliss of nothing; existing in a state of suspension in a womb of rebirth…

A Return to this Planet

Later, the lights and music trigger a return to this planet. As I step out of the pod, I am a new baby chick being re-born from an egg. With a new perspective, my bare feet touch the cold, hard tiles.